Printers are useful for producing printed images of a wide range of types. Printers print on receivers (or “imaging substrates”), such as pieces or sheets of paper or other planar media, glass, fabric, metal, or other objects. Printers typically operate using subtractive color: a substantially reflective receiver is overcoated image-wise with cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), black (K), and other colorants.
In order to recycle receivers that have been printed on, it is desirable to remove the colorant on the receiver. Removal processes are referred to as “deinking” processes. Deinking the receivers permits them to be recycled without having to bleach the color out of them. However, commonly-used inkjet printers deposit hydrophilic ink on absorbent papers. As the ink soaks into the paper after printing, the dyes or pigments in the inks become adhered to or embedded in the paper. These colorants are very difficult to remove. Specifically, solvents used in deinking processes are generally oliophilic, so are poor solvents for the hydrophilic or oliophobic inks generally used in inkjet printing. In an industrial recycling setting, therefore, deinking a mixed waste stream of inkjet- and toner-printed receivers sorting the printed receivers by printing technology and ink used before processing, increases the cost and complexity of recycling. Moreover, the chemicals for deinking hydrophilic inks would have to be processed, producing additional waste.
There is a need, therefore, for a way of deinking a print.